


i don't just want to be a footnote in someone else's happiness

by imitateslife



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Angst, F/M, Infidelity, Mutual Pining, Romantic Friendship, Tagging infidelity just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imitateslife/pseuds/imitateslife
Summary: Gleb and Anya reunite in Paris after the musical and realize, perhaps too late, the kind of love they could have had in another lifetime.





	i don't just want to be a footnote in someone else's happiness

Sunshine streamed into the little cafe overlooking the Seine. Gleb stared out the window quietly, finding it hard to be melancholy as he awaited Anya’s arrival. His presence in Paris this time had nothing to do with her, although, if he was honest, he’d only volunteered for the diplomatic mission in hopes to see her again. They’d met on accident in the marketplace. He’d been filling a basket full of apples, almost greedily, when she called his name. Startled, he dropped the basket. Instantly, a pair of white hands reached for his dropped goods, scooping them up. Her wedding band of gold shone in the mid-afternoon light. Gleb knew those hands otherwise - callused with years of work, but delicately formed at the wrists. He saw them on other women back home, just as he saw her river blue eyes, heard her steady voice, imagined her laugh, but fate could not be so kind and cruel as to place Anya in front of him now. Apologizing in Russian first, then, shyly in French, the woman  _ sounded _ like her and when Gleb finally dared to look, heart thundering in his ears, he saw something he never really got to see before: Anya Romanova’s smile. It shone more than the sun and warmth flooded Gleb’s body. A smile trembled onto his lips as he accepted his apples from her. 

“What are you doing in Paris?” she asked. 

“I volunteered for a diplomatic mission,” Gleb said. “My committee is meeting with the French minister of trade tomorrow morning.”

“I see,” she said. 

Though dressed well - a day dress fit for a modern princess - her hands searched for the too-big sleeves of her old coat. Gleb watched her nails bite into her palms and the half-moons of her nails blushed. When he looked back at her face, trying to memorize it, the fear he remembered seeing there last time they parted was gone. Instead, she looked at him coyly and he couldn’t breathe. 

“And were you going to come to Paris without saying hello?” she asked. 

“You know the risks,” Gleb said. “I’ve convinced the NKVD that Princess Anastasia-”

“You’re shaking.” Anya put a hand to his wrist. “Do you think they’re watching your every move?”

“No,” Gleb admitted. 

It wasn’t the NKVD he feared anymore. He’d considered going to find Anya over the last couple of days, but at night, when he was alone in his hotel, the things he imagined frightened him. He imagined seeing her with that conman -  _ Sudayev _ \- or with children. He imagined reuniting with her and still loving her while she never wanted to see him again. He imagined her happy and it scared him. But even though she wore a wedding ring, Anya was alone. 

“How long are you in Paris for?” 

“We have a week left in the city. Then we leave for Leningrad.”

“We should catch up before you go,” Anya said. “Meet me for coffee tomorrow? There’s a place on the Seine… it reminds me of… Well, I think you’d like it.” 

And that was how Gleb came to wait for her here in this place that reminded her of  _ something _ . It reminded him of the Nevsky Prospekt. Students and political idealists conversed over steaming cups of coffee and tea. Happy couples laughed over pastries. If he had ever taken Anya for tea that first day they met, he would have taken her to a place much like this one. The air wouldn’t be so choked with the bitterness of roasted coffee beans, but this was the reality and not fantasy. It would do. It had to. He might never see Anya again. He hoped she would come alone to meet him, but wondered if a sullen Sudayev would accompany her for her protection against Gleb. No doubt he was the man Anya had married and, no doubt, she had confided in him about the last moments she and Gleb had spent together. Gleb had told no one. No one in his life, except Anya, knew what happened in those moments. No one except Gleb knew that his heart had splintered and never quite repaired that evening. His chest ached dully as he waited. And waited. 

And then the doors opened. 

Gleb rose as Anya entered the coffee shop, dressed in a blue day dress and wearing a smile. He went to pull out her chair for her, but to his surprise, she closed the gap between them and hugged him. He hugged her back, sighing against her hair, which smelled of perfume and something more familiar he couldn’t place. Her lips pressed against his cheek in the French way and Gleb’s skin burned. He wanted to stay in her arms longer, but they released one another and sat across the table from each other. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. 

Gleb noticed her eyes were puffy, as if she’d been crying or as if the autumn wind had stung them with particular viciousness. He reached for Anya’s hand.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “It’s good to see you. I’ve always dreamed we’d see each other again.”

A little smile turned up her lips. At first, it was shaky, but then, with coy wit, she said, “So you’ve been dreaming about me?”

“Nothing untoward!” Heat rose up the back of Gleb’s neck as he lied. “You’re a married woman now. I would never.. You must be very- congratulations!”

He reached for his coffee cup and began to drain it just as the server came by to take Anya’s order. The waiter refilled Gleb’s cup from a huge, metal carafe. Gleb noticed that Anya hadn’t ordered anything fancy - just plain black coffee. Gleb smiled as he added cream and sugar to his cup. And then more sugar. 

“So, are you?” he asked.

“Married?”

“Happy.”

Anya’s smile faded.

“Are you?”

Gleb looked down at his coffee cup. His days were spent in a cold office in the coldest city in the world, without the warm hope he might see the woman he cared for. His nights were spent in a cold apartment in the coldest city in the world, without the warmth of any company. To say he was  _ unhappy _ would be a lie. It’d be the biggest understatement in the world. Somehow, he felt that Anya’s sharp question answered his. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” she said. “It’s been a long year.”

“I can imagine.” News of Maria Feodoroevna’s death reached Leningrad a few months ago. Gleb had wanted to fly to Paris, to run to Anya when he heard the news. Instead, Gorlinsky had cruelly tasked him to give the speech about the death of the last Romanov empress. Gleb reached for Anya’s hand and he touched her knuckles lightly. “I’m glad you did not have to face it alone.”

Hopefully, that was the one thing Sudayev could do  _ right _ . Anya tilted her head. Her eyes, brimming with fresh tears Gleb knew she would be too stubborn to cry, filled with more warmth and gratitude. 

“So you know all about my year,” she teased, voice thick. “Tell me about yours.”

“What’s there to say?” Gleb shook his head. “You were lucky to leave Leningrad when you did.”

“That’s not the Gleb Vaganov I know,” she said, still teasing, voice clearer. “Where is the optimism of a new Russia?”

“I left it at home.” 

“Then how on earth are you going to persuade the trade minister to make any kind of deal with you?”

“I can be persuasive when I have to be,” Gleb said. “Well, to those who can be persuaded. Some people are a little too stubborn for me to sway - and I’m thankful for that every day.” 

Anya laughed and Gleb relished the sound. Soon, they lapsed into comfortable conversation, the way old friends did. It was hard to believe that before now, their conversations had been so tension-filled. She spoke of her work with the charity her grandmother had opened in her honor. He told her of silly, oxymoronic workplace antics. For a while, there was nothing and no one else in the world but Anya. Neither she nor Gleb touched their coffee cups. As the sun traveled in the sky, the conversation did not die but took on a more intimate tone, warmer. Gleb imagined coming home to these kinds of conversations every night, filled with light teasing and open-hearted communication. He imagined - for a moment - Anya the street sweeper and Gleb the commander, before everything had gone to hell, coming home to each other in his Leningrad flat. He imagined massaging her callused soles and heels as they debated politics and spoke of a brighter future they both could still believe in. His eyes dropped to her lips as she spoke about her charity work with orphans and the kindredness she felt for them. 

“They’ve lost their families, too,” she said. “And they give me a new sense of purpose and family.” 

“That’s wonderful. And those are the… only children in your life?”

Anya raised an eyebrow. 

“I don’t mean to pry-”

“No, you’re not prying,” Anya lied. “But, yes. They are.”

“Ah,” he said. “Someday, maybe? You’d be an excellent mother.”

Anya barked out a laugh. “You’ve never met my husband, have you?”

“Not… socially,” Gleb said, thinking about the handful of times he’d arrested Dmitry Sudayev in their younger days. “He doesn’t want kids?”

“He doesn’t want roots,” Anya said. “He keeps talking about leaving Paris, seeing the world…” 

“You’ve already traveled so much,” Gleb said. “And from everything you’ve told me…”

“What?”

“You just… I would expect you to want to lay a foundation somewhere. Put down roots.”

Anya lifted her coffee cup to her lips and said nothing. Gleb stared at her. She blinked rapidly and refused to look at him. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “Dmitry and I… we want different things. Most of the time.” 

“But surely he treats you well?”

Anya sipped her coffee for a while. Gleb studied her for bruises or heavily applied makeup - the tell-tale signs he’d learned to look for in the government’s new initiative to criminalize domestic violence. Anya bore no such signs. Something in Gleb’s chest relaxed reluctantly. Just because Dmitry didn’t hit her didn’t mean he didn’t hurt her in other ways. Gleb thought of his parents - his father who prioritized politics over the family. He chewed the inside of his mouth. 

“He isn’t a bad man, Gleb,” Anya assured him. Her hand touched Gleb’s wrist. “He isn’t used to stability. And now that we have it, I don’t think he likes it much.”

“So you argue.”

“Gleb, please-”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is why he didn’t want me to come,” she said. “We fought before I left to meet you. He kept saying that seeing you would only upset me.”

“Does it?” Gleb withdrew his hand. “Because that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“It’s not why you think…”

Gleb reached for the tab and his wallet to pay for the coffee. It was time to part ways. A lump formed in his throat. Anya reached for his hand again to stop him. If she was thinking about paying the tab -

“Did you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if you hadn’t gone back to Leningrad?” she asked. “Or if I’d gone with you?”

Gleb paused and inhaled shallowly.

“I could never have robbed you of the family you’d found,” he said. “You lost…  _ everything  _ because of my family. I could never have asked you to sacrifice more-”

But as he spoke, Gleb knew that even though he never could have robbed Anya of her family when she’d reunited with her grandmother, he did dream about a life with her. He’d always presumed that she could have it all if she chose her conman, but now he wondered in what ways Sudayev did not understand his wife. He knew if he asked, Anya would say that her husband was not a bad man. For all he knew, she could be right. But if he gave her the stability that Anya craved, if they didn’t argue, if she was  _ happy _ , she never would have asked Gleb if he dreamed about a future with her - a future they could no longer have. 

“I know,” Anya said. “But  _ still _ …” 

Gleb nodded. 

“I love Dmitry,” she said quietly, fiercely, like she was defending herself from a part of her that might have said otherwise. “And he loves me. But if things had been different…”

“Anya…” 

Gleb swallowed hard and blinked back the heat of sudden tears. His mind swirled with possibilities - many of them passed - where he could love Anya. One throbbed in his temple, one he could make come true  _ now _ . He imagined leaning across the table and kissing her deeply. He imagined coffee shops and tea houses like this whenever she needed to escape the discord of her married life, where they talked and held hands and kissed… He imagined hotel rooms where they kissed and explored each other with a passion he’d forgotten how to feel and spoke of her divorce so they could build the foundations she craved, that they  _ both _ craved, and live a real life. 

But it was nothing but a dream. A wish. A hopeless desire. It went against everything in his nature. Why was he entertaining the thought, even in fantasy? It made him ache. It made him sick. 

“Don’t do this to yourself,” he said. “Don’t ask me this…”

“If things had been different,” she continued, “we could have been happy together.”

“All I want is for you to be happy,” Gleb said. “Whoever that’s with, wherever you are. You deserve to be happy, Anya.”

He took the tab and shelled out francs to pay the bill. He focused on counting them one by one.

“So do you.” Anya paused. “Will you come back to Paris?”

“If the job demands it. It’s probably better I stay away.”

Because if he didn’t, Gleb wasn’t sure he could maintain a safe distance, a platonic friendship with Anya. His morals strained against the pressure of desire to at least kiss her properly, just once, to close the door on that fantasy. Instead, he felt that if he kissed her, even once, he would never be able to stop. 

“I see.”

“I don’t want to interfere,” he said. “I’ve meddled in your life enough, done enough damage.” 

“I shouldn’t have told you.” 

“You should have told me sooner,” Gleb said, looking at her levelly. “Or I should have. If you had - or if I had - I’d want to give you that foundation to dig your roots into. But if I’d tried, we’d both be dead.”

Anya nodded solemnly. It was the sobering, painful truth. 

“It’s enough to know that I could have loved you in another life,” Gleb said softly. “That I do in this one…. And that you could have loved me.”

“I would have liked that.” 

“If you are ever unbearably unhappy - more than just disagreeing with Sudayev - write to me,” Gleb said. “Use a pseudonym and tell me to come back and I will.”

Anya rose and when they went to part there was a moment that Gleb’s lips and hers brushed, electric with desire, but they laughed sadly and kissed each other’s cheeks. Gleb walked towards the Seine and staring into it he knew he would never receive a letter from Anya, but that he would hope for one anyways for the rest of his days, wondering how many times she picked up a pen only to put it down again. 


End file.
